


More I See (Day Thirteen: Dreams/Illusion

by RhetoricFemme



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-12 00:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15983321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhetoricFemme/pseuds/RhetoricFemme
Summary: Marco survives his injuries after the Battle of Trost. He soon learns that he hasn't been abandoned, but has been actively tended to during his time unconscious in the infirmary.





	More I See (Day Thirteen: Dreams/Illusion

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So, I don't normally traipse around the canonverse, yet here we are! And I rather like it here, actually...

It requires every last bit of Marco’s energy to finally wake up.

To rise up and drown out the cacophony of wretched sobs and all of the death screams. To throw off the soul-numbing pain that rakes against his bones, reconciling that he is now Hell’s newest violin, an instrument to be played after being wrought from his broken down body.

Marco rediscovers himself one arm short, with a tightly wound bandage rendering him blind from where it wraps across the cruel throb of his head. Cold, sticky gauze mocks him as the sun sinks him into another miserable night—he knows this because though he should be thanking the sky above for his life, the nightmare sobs from his sleep appear to have followed him home.

In and out of consciousness, Marco knows by the quiet steps and chirp of insects that it's become his accidental habit to wake in the dark of night.

He feels like a dead man burdened by the routine of breathing, lays motionless and incapable of mourning his lost arm. Adopting the cries around him as his very own lyke wake dirge.

If he hasn’t died yet, it can’t be much longer now.

Sighing proves a chore, though it’s a worthwhile endeavor as Marco takes what he imagines is the first satisfyingly deep breath he’s had since… since the world peeled itself back to reveal this abyss.

One more time.

One more breath heaved up past his aching chest, and as expected it’s enough to drop him out of this place and back into oblivion.

The next time Marco emerges it’s from black, dreamless sleep. Better than wherever he’d been before, be it memory or imagination he doesn’t really care. The only thing he’s seen since Trost are the frantic, blood-caked landscapes of his dreams, and between faceless lamentations and these bandages Marco can’t tell if it’s the voices of strangers or his friends suffering nearby.

He thinks nothing of daytime visitors, as no one will have time for that kind of sentimentality. It never occurs to him that patients aren't the only ones hurting inside the infirmary.

He contemplates if his own pain compares to that of the titan shifters. If they feel each fiber of their bodies fusing back together only to be torn apart all over again.

What is it like, he wonders, to emerge unscathed from a devil’s womb?

There’s little time for musing, as he recognizes a new sound in the infirmary. The guttural weeping of some poor fool trying in vain to keep himself together in the quiet of the night—the only sound of its kind and Marco is forced to ask himself if this is the same place he’d woken before.

It’s over as quick as it’d began, the tears replaced by a second voice whispering short, careful words to the first. Instructions.

Fingertips rest gentle and warm against Marco’s cheek, the medical shears that follow not so much. Marco’s heart twitches at the sound of teary, apologetic laughter.

Jean.

The shears graze his face one more time, cutting away the bandage that’s been keeping him blind. His right eye throbs so much worse than the left, but oh, it pales to the consciousness washing over him.

The sweet calm that trails beside the fingertips across his skin.

“ _Je—_ “

Heart racing, chest in shudders, a new pair of hands stills Marco against the bed with a generically maternal hush, but still he knows Jean hasn’t gone away.

“Try not to move, Marco.”

“ _Jean!!"_  He knew it. Marco lets go of a sob, the first he's allowed himself since regaining any semblance of control over himself, because _Jean is here_. “Oh! I thought—thought you were—“

He doesn’t care that Jean’s touch is more nervous than it is affectionate. There had only ever been discreet, understood-if-still-not-cryptic acknowledgment of their affections. Neither of them had imagined there would be a time for any of that.

But everything is different now, and the staccato elation of Jean’s hospital-quiet voice does more for Marco than the bandage finally coming off his eyes.

Stiff muscles and burned skin meet the cool air, and it’s midnight when Marco finally opens his left eye—why only the left,  _why?_ —and just as he’d hoped, Jean is the first thing he sees.

Tears of relief.

Gifted words and promises that render hearts mended, and Marco will swear for all his life this is all he needs, as Jean wipes both of their tears away by the light of the moon.


End file.
